
James Gillett (20 September 1860-20 April 1937) was a member of the US House of Representatives (R-CA 1) from 4 March 1903 to 4 November 1906 (succeeding Frank Coombs and preceding William F. Englebright) and Governor of California from 9 January 1907 to 3 January 1911 (succeeding George Pardee and preceding Hiram Johnson).
Biography[]
James Gillett was born in Viroqua, Wisconsin in 1860, and he was raised in Sparta, Wisconsin. He became a lawyer in Wisconsin in 1881, and he settled in Eureka, California in 1884 and served in the state militia, protecting a local town jail during anti-Chinese riots in Eureka. He went on to serve as Eureka city attorney from 1890 to 1895, in the State Senate in 1896, in the US House of Representatives from 1903 to 1906, and as Governor from 1907 to 1911. He supported the railroad corporations' interests, and he supported the construction of more transcontinental railroads between California and the east. In 1909, he passed the state's first eugenics law, making it legal for state officials to sterilize mental patients considered clinically insane, prisoners exhibiting sexual or moral perversions, and anyone with more than three criminal convictions. He also established the state highway system in 1909. In 1910, influenced by his wife and his financial troubles, Gillett decided not to run for re-election, and he became a lawyer in San Francisco, worked as an attorney and lobbyist in Washington DC from 1916 to 1920, began a law practice in Oakland in 1934, and died in Berkeley in 1937.